


missing film

by thefigureinthecorner



Category: The AM Archives (Podcast), The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Chapter 1 Tags:, Chapter 2 Tags:, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Owen “I’m fine” Green, That's it that's the chapter whoops, Torture, Whump, repressing trauma like a champ
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22157785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: Some scenes in The AM Archives that were implied to happen off-screen that I wish we'd seen more of.Tags will be added as chapters are added.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	1. we all fall down (or: what happens when wadsworth hangs up the phone)

**Author's Note:**

> apparently i just decided that the am archives didn't hurt owen enough
> 
> whoops

Wadsworth hangs up.

Helen rounds on Owen as she tosses the phone back down on the receiver with a frustrated clatter. He takes a step back, involuntarily, immediately fearing what moving might mean for him, and he snarls at him. She has the scalpel clenched in her hand like a warning.

“You. You were  _ useless. _ ”

He doesn’t answer, frozen in fear, as he knows that one wrong move could result in his untimely end. Even if he’d wanted to answer, even if he’d  _ had  _ an answer, it would’ve been a fruitless effort; the pain starts again and it’s enough to bring him to his knees as he clutches his head and screams.

“Well, I have to make good on my promise now, don’t I?” She squats down to his level where he’s curling in on himself on the floor, trying to avoid her piercing gaze. “Aw, don’t be such a baby, I’m only hurting you a little.”

He keeps screaming.

It’s like fire ants have been set loose in his head, burning and crawling and tingling and biting all at once, every single cubic millimeter of his brain screaming in alarm as the high pitched ringing in his ears grows more and more intense-- _something's wrong something's wrong something's wrong_. He can’t breathe around the pain, can’t feel his limbs because they feel numb in comparison, can’t  _ move  _ because his entire mental capacity has been taken up by the feeling. Like his head’s going to explode. Like his brain is trying to hammer and chisel its way through his skull. Like any second now the bone is going to crack and cave and he’ll die on the spot.

Maybe that’d be okay.

It wouldn’t hurt anymore if he did, at any rate.

But he doesn’t die.

Instead it gets  _ worse. _

Helen’s still talking, he thinks, but the buzzing in his ears is too loud for him to make out any of the words. She yells, and yells, and it gets louder and more intense and he thinks he might black out from the pain, his vision is spotting so much--

And then it stutters.

The pain sputters out and dies and he thinks he  _ does  _ black out, genuinely, for a couple seconds, just from the pure relief of feeling nothing for a moment. He gasps for air, finally feeling like his lungs belong to him again, and finally aware enough to feel the tears streaming down his face. He opens his eyes to see Helen, hunched over and shaking her head, fingers pressed to her temple, and--

Ah.

She strained herself too much, didn’t she?

He tries to push up off the carpet, and his brain doesn’t catch up with his mouth in time, clearly, because his concern wins out and maybe, maybe this is an opportunity to try to help, prove that he’s trying to change, so he asks, voice hoarse: “Are you okay?”

Wrong choice.

_ Wrong choice. _

She glares at him and the pain comes back and hits him like a wall, and he crumples to the floor again, doubling over and crying into his knees. He wants to try to fight it, wants to not feel this  _ pathetic  _ against it, but it’s all-encompassing and he can’t do anything  _ but  _ scream.

His eyes are wrenched shut against it and he sees Andrea’s body burned behind his eyelids and he can’t open them to make the image go away.

It doesn’t last as long this time, though. The same thing happens. It sputters. It goes away. He’s left trying to push himself up off the floor, breathing through the aftershocks of the pain.

Helen looks  _ pissed  _ when he looks up to meet her eyes.

“Well,” she says, laughing, “looks like this isn’t working quite how I’d hoped. Oh well.”

She grabs a paperweight off the desk and swings for his head.


	2. i’ll be there soon (or: after the ICU speaker breaks)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> me, overanalyzing the end of episode 13: ok so that sounds like Owen’s footsteps walking across the room to break the speaker to stop the sound of Andrea’s screaming which makes sense because he watched her die—
> 
> (so anyway here’s that)

The sound of Helen screaming as Dr. Sharpe is cut off abruptly when Owen quickly steps forward and rips the PA system speaker off of the wall.

“Cut off” is maybe not the right word— it’s a building-wide PA system and Dr. Sharpe’s voice continues to echo through the halls like a ghost— but it’s quieter now, less direct, easier to shut out. But the movement is abrupt, coming from Owen; he can be snappy at times, yes, but he’s rarely aggressive and even less so physically. But here he stands, holding the broken speaker in his hands and staring blankly at the spot where it used to be, at the exposed wiring and broken plastic sticking out of the wall.

His hands are shaking.

He doesn’t seem to notice this until Sam puts a hand over his.

“Are you alright?” She sounds concerned and, as Owen snaps out of wherever his mind had gone, he notices that she looks concerned too.

_Most_ of them look concerned. Even Mark’s face has softened, and Oliver may not look concerned per se but he doesn’t look nearly as pissed off as Owen has learned his default state to be.

And— ah.

They’re concerned about him.

His hands are still shaking under Sam’s touch and he takes a deep breath and tries to force them steady.

“I’m— fine. It’s fine.”

It’s not.

He sees the blood when he closes his eyes.

“Are you sure?” Joan, this time.

The screams are still echoing in the halls and he repeats himself one more time like that’ll make it true.

“I’m fine. Really.”

He sets the broken speaker down on one of the counters in the room, sits back down, and listens to Dr. Sharpe’s screams— _Helen’s screams,_ he has to remind himself— die out.

Just like she had, right in front of him.

And then it hits him that this bastardized version of her voice that Helen’s stolen from her is the last he’ll probably hear of her voice, unless she’s got some audio notes hanging around somewhere like he has. He’s never going to hear her voice for real ever again.

But he doesn’t have time to fall apart right now; the others have bigger fish to fry, he can’t be a priority, can’t let himself give into the grief and the panic until later, when he’s alone and not a distraction to the process of rebuilding after this is all said and done.

He lets the focus shift away from him, lets himself follow Sam and Oliver into the makeshift bathroom lab and tries to push his own focus into helping with the serum, lets Joan go back to making sure Mark is alright, lets everyone go back to ignoring him and focusing on making it through the night.

He pushes his emotions down and tries to dive back into what the others need of him.

If he can’t be okay right now, maybe he can at least prove Wadsworth wrong and still be useful.


End file.
